Rebirth
by Anothersnake
Summary: The final choice was made, the Crucible was fired. Now the galaxy must live with the consequences of Shepard's choice. How will the galaxy react to Shepard's choice? Will it be defended or fought against. Decisions will be made on both sides that everyone must live with. Femshep/Garrus romance. Colonist/War Hero


**Hello everyone, and thank you for reading my first story Rebirth. I hope all of you will enjoy.**

**I do not own Mass Effect and is property of Bioware and EA.**

Rebirth

Chapter 1: Consequences

_**Shepard's POV**_

Shepard looked out towards the battle surrounding Earth. Despite the odds the fleet was holding their own, but she knew that couldn't last. She wasn't focusing on the loss of life however; she was concerned about what was best for those people that were depending on her.

On one hand there was destroy, but was it worth the cost of the Geth, a race she fought so hard to ensure received a chance, despite mistrust from the galactic community. She swore after Legion sacrificed himself that his sacrifice would not be in vain. But what of EDI, a person she helped truly understand life and herself. An ally. A friend. If she chooses to destroy the Reapers not only would she have lied to Legion and herself, she would be stabbing a friend in the back.

Unacceptable.

Another option was synthesis. A short cut to the final stage of evolution, that the catalyst was aware of anyway. It sounded like a good deal. Other than her death of course, but her life was insignificant compared to the fate of the galaxy. She found herself thinking of Legion again. He had once told her that the journey was just as important as the destination, which was true. If you learned nothing on the way what was the point? Plus the Catalyst said they had tried this before and it failed. She was too afraid to ask what happened to the organics that were not ready, what could have happened to them. Was it worth the risk that something would go wrong?

No, it wasn't.

The galaxy's last hope was control. She would gain full control of all Reaper forces and could end the war. She could give the Reapers a new purpose, to hopefully make the deaths of all past cycles worth something. Shepard would hopefully be able to reestablish the relay network, and then protect the people of the galaxy. Shepard realized that she could prevent what happened to her at Mindoir all those years ago, and to Shepard that meant almost everything.

Shepard, decision made, limbed towards the left and slowly walked up the ramp, taking in the beauty of Earth one more time. As she approached the conduit images of her fallen friends popped into her mind. Shepard took a few minutes to think about her friends, remembering the great times they all had, and slowly brought herself forward knowing that she would never see them again.

Before she could bring herself to activate the Crucible she remembered Garrus's order back on London, and started to tear up when she realized she wouldn't be able to follow it.

"I'm s-sorry Garrus, I'll always watch over you. I l-l-love you." She said to herself, hot tears running down her cheeks.

Shepard took a step forward and grabbed onto the two rods that were sticking out of the Conduit. As soon as she grabbed hold of the second one she felt an unimaginable amount of pain. It was difficult not to let go but she knew the galaxy was depending on her. Her vision started to fade away and knew that the war was about to come to an end.

_**Joker's POV**_

Joker was weaving the Normandy through the battle desperately trying to avoid Reaper fire. Suddenly a bright blue light was seen in between the Crucible and the Citadel. It was slowly expanding outward. Joker was so distracted that he barely heard Hackett's order to retreat from the system.

All he could think was, _Fuck that! I can't leave Shepard behind._

As he started to bring the Normandy around he felt a hand on his shoulder. Joker violently shook it off and discovered that the hand belonged to Javik.

"There is no choice. We must go, now." He simply stated, but had an uncharacteristic amount of sadness behind the words.

Joker was about to tell him off when he realized that Javik was right.

He closed his eyes and swore to himself before he reluctantly sent the Normandy away from the Crucible.

The Normandy was starting to get to the edge of the system when suddenly he heard yelling in the back.

Joker looked over his shoulder to see a wounded and belligerent Garrus trying to shove everyone aside to get to Joker. Garrus was somehow managing to force his way forward despite being outnumbered six to one. Even Vega was having trouble restraining him and before Vega could restrain him Garrus landed a blow straight to his face.

Vega was knocked down for as second but was back up in an instant. Garrus got violent, fast, swinging at anyone in his way. However his injuries made him slow. Chakwas had been following and quickly gave him a sedative. The rest of them backed off as he was going to be out in a couple of seconds anyway. Garrus took three steps towards Joker before he finally passed out.

All this did was making Joker feel worse, not only was he possibly leaving a friend possibly to die but he was betraying Garrus.

Joker noticed that the blast was getting closer and Joker started the prep to get them through the Relay.

EDI stated, in a panicked voice "The blast's speed is picking up exponentially!"

Joker looked at his monitors to realize that she was right. They weren't going to reach the Relay in time so he activated the FTL drive and jumped the ship.

A few minutes passed before alarm sirens went off. The blast from the Crucible had already caught up with them and now threatened to overtake the Normandy.

Joker tried as hard as he could but he knew it was futile. He looked over to EDI in the co-pilots chair. He reached his arm out to her and she did the same.

_**Two Days Later Garrus's POV**_

Garrus had spent most of his time up in Shepard's cabin after the Crucible fired, staring at picture that James had taken on the Citadel right after Shepard and he had their tango. She was leaning up against his body smiling up at him while he returned the smile. He hadn't said a word for the last two days, he had none left. What was he supposed to do; the love of his life was most likely dead, as she was at the center of a blast that was able to down the Normandy light-years away.

Garrus of course had helped with some of the repairs but he wasn't Tali, there was only so much he could do. According the reports he read last the Normandy would be ready in about a week, but that didn't bring him any hope.

Shepard would be disappointed in him to say the least. She was always the one with hope, sure she had her doubts now and then but she never gave up like the way he had. Garrus hated himself for acting like this but he didn't have the beautiful redhead he loved to lift his spirits, not anymore.

And now he was sinking back even farther, damn. Garrus had the sudden urge to leave the room, too many reminders to what he has lost.

Garrus slowly walked, as if on instinct, straight to the cockpit. It was unsurprising to see that Joker was there, in fact Garrus could only think of a handful of times when he wasn't.

"Joker" he said as calmly as he could, trying not to give into the rage he felt about Joker leaving Shepard behind.

"Garrus, I-I'm sorry" Joker replied as he turned to look at him.

Garrus was shocked about Joker's appearance as he had been avoiding him this whole time. He looked awful; it looked like he hadn't gone to sleep since the Crucible fired.

Garrus would have said he didn't need to be sorry, that he made the right call but he wasn't sure if that was true.

"Joker you look terrible, when was the last time you slept."

"Before we hit the Sol relay."

"Joker go get some sleep and get some food, the Normandy isn't ready yet, you don't need to kill yourself over this."

"Of course I DO!" Joker screamed at him, causing Garrus to flinch.

"I left her behind, again. We need to get back." He muttered, more likely to himself than Garrus.

It almost killed Garrus to see Joker this way. Garrus stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Joker, get some sleep. You won't get anything done in this state."

Joker looked into his lap for couple of seconds before he finally relented.

EDI had heard the entire conversation and was already there to help Joker as he tried to get up.

EDI gave Garrus a brief smile of thanks before she helped Joker down to the crew deck.

Garrus started taking the path that Shepard always would when going around to talk to her crew. Garrus spent the next few hours just talking to the crew. None of them had lost hope about Shepard and Garrus started to believe by just listening, and was disgusted that he seemed to be the only one to lose hope.

He started to wonder that if Shepard talked to the crew like this to boost her spirits, among other things. It would make sense as she always did seem to be in a better mode once she was done. She would always visit Garrus both first and last, something that he was dearly missing right now. However he saw what he had become in two days and was scared by it. He realized whether or not Shepard was dead she would not want him to miserable.

Garrus went upstairs to his new quarters and hoping that he could get some sleep, and was out within minutes of him hitting the bed.

_**Present Time Shepard**_

Shepard, or whatever she was now, was lost in the new perspective she had gained. She was able to "see" out of all Reaper ships and ground troops all at once. She was also able to use the collective intelligence of the Reapers to process an insane amount of data. It felt strange at first, seeing so much information. It was overwhelming and base instinct was in control at first, but that wasn't a bad thing at the time. It caused all Reaper units to retreat as far from the battles as possible and even the troops that were stuck on Earth stayed in isolated areas of Earth for a time.

Shepard, when she had become accustomed to her new form, sent in the troops to start the rebuilding process. The army that was still on Earth had panicked and started to open fire when her troops arrived, but stopped when they realized that they weren't under attack. Shepard was expecting that.

The looks on some people's faces when they watched Reaper troops helping the rebuilding process was priceless. Shepard would have chuckled if she could.

She watched with sadness as she passed by her friends, wishing that she could be with them. But there were more important things than her desires. Miranda started leading a study into the change of Reaper behavior. Everyone had figured out that the Crucible was responsible, but no one but Shepard truly knew what was going on, that is what had people on edge. Not knowing.

No one got in her way however, and the rebuilding process was off to a great start. Shepard had brought in most of the Reaper ships in orbit to speed things along. The Reaper ships were surprisingly effective builders, but Shepard focused them on demolitions until she really understood the controls.

Shepard looked desperately for the Normandy to make sure Garrus was safe, but she had overheard Miranda mention that they were able to make the jump to FTL speeds.

Shepard was gaining a lot of information from her troops, as people were actually speaking in front of them. All this information was able to expand Shepard's understanding of what needed to be done.

She had already heard that the relays were damaged and had sent several capital ships and destroyers to fix the damage. The calculations that she had made suggested that the Sol Relay would be finished in about two days.

While all of this was happening on Earth she was also on Palaven, Tuchanka, Thessia, and all other places were even one Reaper was present.

However, like the Geth, Shepard had more control when Reapers were in larger numbers. Thankfully they didn't attack they just acted slowly and inefficiently compared to the rest.

This bothered Shepard as Reapers never seemed to have had this problem before, and she would need to fix as soon as possible.

Several Relays were starting to near completion throughout the galaxy, but Shepard knew that for every Relay that were approaching completion dozens remained. Shepard ran the numbers and it would take about six months to fix all known Relays.

Shepard would have sighed, that was a lot of work just on the Relays themselves. She would also need to help repair the Citadel, help repair all the worlds that suffered under the war, and protect these people from others that might take advantage of the weakened state of the galaxy.

That would be a challenge, as Reaper forces would end up being spread thin, reducing their effectiveness, and ultimately cost time, and maybe lives.

Time, what a strange concept to her now. Did time even matter, the catalyst was still in operation even though it was from before the first harvest. She was pretty much immortal now, maybe not if the Citadel was destroyed along with all of her forces. The chances of that happening were pretty slim, after all no one knew that the Citadel was the central point for her intelligence.

But did she want to live that long, she would end up watching her friends die.

_I would have to watch Garrus die._

That had an unfortunate effect. All Reaper forces in the galaxy stopped whatever they were doing for the moment. Across the galaxy people from every race watched with suspicion, wondering what was happening. She snapped out of her thoughts and she sent her pawns back to work. People watched with interest, it was just revealed that something had and could affected every Reaper in the galaxy at once, though no one but Shepard actually knew that had happened.

Shepard was shocked how much that thought had affected her pawns. The level of connection was so deep that her emotions would affect them. Strange indeed, and dangerous.

Shepard started to focus on the relay system and looked for ways to speed up the process, and a way to improve the relay network.

_**Miranda's POV Present Time**_

Miranda was heading up the new Alliance research initiative to analyze the extent of the change in the Reapers. Sure the Reapers were no longer killing them, but that wasn't the only change.

Reaper forces have started to condense considerably since the Crucible fired. A strange behavior and no one could offer any explanations as to why.

The Reaper ground troops had been instantly turned into workers. Slaving away at all times of the day to repair the damage they had caused. Interesting, and a god send.

If it wasn't for the Reapers the situation of Earth would be much bleaker. The Reapers handled all the dangerous jobs of reconstruction and demolition, losing some troops in the process but that didn't seem to be a concern for them.

Miranda would say that the Reapers seem to looking for redemption, but AI's wouldn't be affected by societal judgments that would cause them to look for redemption.

The most curious observation Miranda had observed was when she saw the behavior of the Reapers first hand. The first one that saw her seemed to stare at her, but it didn't see it stare at anyone else.

_Did it recognize her?_

Miranda had recently been granted some funding and space by Admiral Hackett to build a team and learn whatever they could. After all if the Reapers were going to be sticking around they needed information.

She started to scroll down the list of potential recruits, most coming from AI specialists on the Crucible.

After she completed her list she sent it off to Hackett and decided now was a great time to get some shut eye.

**Hello everyone. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed. This is my first time writing so please give me some slack at first, but I still want constructive comments and suggestions. Please feel free to pm me if you have any questions. By the way italicized text are thoughts of the character, just so there is no confusion. **


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